


Yellow and Orange

by meleonon



Series: Bosselot Week 2016 [1]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: #BosselotWeek2016, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 17:56:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8499622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meleonon/pseuds/meleonon
Summary: The special Halloween themed rides and food enticed hundreds of people to the fair, no matter what they did on a daily basis. Children’s screams of fear and joy filled the evening air while the teenagers and younger adults enjoyed the scary rides and haunted houses.In the midst of the crowds, a duo wandered side by side, taking in the sights of the numerous rides and attraction.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Submission for the Bosselot week prompt: Fear.

Yellow and orange leaves danced in the crisp autumn air as people, bundled up for the colder October weather, wandered around the fairgrounds. The special Halloween themed rides and food enticed hundreds of people to the fair, no matter what they did on a daily basis. Children’s screams of fear and joy filled the evening air while the teenagers and younger adults enjoyed the scary rides and haunted houses.

In the midst of the crowds, a duo wandered side by side, taking in the sights of the numerous rides and attractions. The taller of the two shifted his scarf to fit a little tighter on his neck as the wind had loosened it slightly.

“I don’t see how you aren’t freezing dressed like that.” The other man told the taller man, pulling his own coat tighter against his frame, glancing over at his companion.

Looking at him, the taller man quirked his lip playfully, “Have you forgotten that I’m from the USSR…it tends to be colder there.” The shorter of the two snorted, his eye drifting around the food stalls, his stomach telling him that he wanted to eat something soon.

“No, I haven’t forgotten…though I’m starting to think you may be slightly crazy.” Shooting back his response, he met his gaze with his remaining eye teasingly.

“Only slightly crazy? Damn, and here I thought that I would have done better than that John.” Releasing a laugh, Snake shook his head amusedly. He certainly is something else.

“Once again Adam, you completely baffle me.” This time, Ocelot laughed, placing his hand on Snake’s shoulder for a moment before releasing him to point at a haunted house in the distance.

“Do you hear the screams coming from that place?” Snake listened closely and sure enough, he could hear a distinctly female scream emanate from the scary attraction. Meeting Ocelot’s amused stare, Snake smirked at him.

“Yeah, probably only people over-reacting for the sake of reacting.” Ocelot chuckled at that, nodding his head in agreement.

“Sounds like something Eva would do.” Ocelot quipped back, his rivalry with the blonde woman not having diminished in the last six years, nevertheless, Snake snorted amusedly.

“Careful, she may be around here somewhere and if she heard you say something like that…” He trailed off, not quite sure what Eva would truly do, but the insinuation was there…and he knew Ocelot was smart enough to figure something out on his own.

“I’d love to see her try something. She’d probably just start bitching about me being a bastard…there’s no fun in that.” Even though Ocelot was talking to Snake, he was letting his attention wander around the fairgrounds, enjoying the flashing lights and music booming from each of the small booths. Snake knew that Ocelot didn’t need a response, so he remained silent, enjoying the other man’s company.

Now that they were closer to the haunted house, the screams were louder and were heard more frequently. There was a short line leading to the entrance, as only a few people could go in at a time.

“I don’t see why people find that enjoyable. It seems so…” Ocelot waved his gloved hand around, trying to come up with a word to describe it the best, but settled on, “…childish.” Snake watched as another pair entered the house at the instruction of the worker watching over the attraction.

“Yeah, I’m sure they are created to scare children…and teenage girls.” Snake looked over at Ocelot, who huffed in amusement with a nod. They stopped and watched another pair go inside, this time a slightly older man and what looked to be the man’s ten year old daughter.

“How long until we hear the girl scream?” It took Snake a moment to realize that Ocelot had been the one to address him, and he mulled his answer over for a few moments.

“I give her three minutes.”

They waited, each of the counting their way up to three minutes.

People walked past them, not caring as to why they were just standing and staring at the haunted house, each of them wrapped up in their own worlds.

Their gazes snapped over to each other when the scream came about four minutes later.

But it wasn’t the girl who screamed…

…no, it was definitely the girl’s father who released the almost blood curdling scream.

Neither of them knew what to say about that.

Somehow in some way, the two of them ended up in the line leading up to the haunted house.

“I doubt this will be scary at all.” Ocelot said, his arms crossed across his chest as he peered around the teenage couple in front of them to see how long the line actually was.

“I’m sure it’ll be more amusing than scary.” Snake added on, smiling as Ocelot looked back at him with a grin.

“No doubt about that.” Ocelot’s expression morphed into one that told Snake that he was thinking. “Though, if you scream, I promise I won’t tell anyone.” His expression had then morphed into a cat-like grin that reminded Snake of the other man’s fitting codename.

“Can’t say I’ll make the same promise though.” Snake shot back, enjoying the momentarily shocked look on the younger man’s face, apparently surprised that Snake could come up with a decent comeback every once in a while.

It didn’t take long for the both of them to reach the front of the line and they grinned at one another when they were told that they could enter.

 

The first area they came to was much darker than it was outside and as their eyes started to adjust to the dimness of the room, they made their way further away from the entrance, deeper into the lair that had coaxed so many screams out of the other patrons. Snake was a few steps ahead of Ocelot, the hallway only wide enough to allow one person at a time through. First a click, then a whirring sound alerted the trained soldiers immediately so they were prepared when a giant plastic spider dropped down right in front of Snake’s face. Both Snake and Ocelot snorted at that, pushing the plastic thing out of their way so they could advance, both wondering if other people actually fell for such a cheap gag.

They reached a narrow room that wasn’t lit at all, and this time Ocelot led the way, his hands brushing against the wall to ensure he didn’t run into anything. Snake’s fingertips brushed an identical path behind Ocelot’s hand, though he would know if something was to come up since the other man would have warned him ahead of time. The wall was cold underneath his fingers and the silence was loud in his ears. Ocelot remained steadfast in his pace, the complete darkness didn’t even seem to bother him. He didn’t even flinch when a hand shot out of the wall, grabbed his wrist and tried pulling his hand into the hole. There had been no initial audio cues like with the spider, but nonetheless, it was expected.

“Let my hand go before I decide to break all of your fingers.” Ocelot’s voice broke the silence and Snake outright laughed at that. Sure enough, the hand released Ocelot as quickly as possible, not even bothering to try and startle Snake as he walked past the same spot. Apparently, the person had held onto Ocelot’s hand a bit too long for the other man’s liking…though Snake didn’t blame him. The person was actually lucky that it **had** been Ocelot that they had grabbed…had they grabbed Snake, he would have broken their wrist out of pure instinct. Continuing on their way they made it to the next room.

The third room had a dim lighting, something that was welcome for the two. Standing side by side this time, they started into the room, each of them searching for anything that was out of the ordinary, not that anything had them worried. About halfway into the room, they came across a large box seated on the floor, a light dangling only a few feet above the top. First a very quiet buzz, then a snap as the box snapped open to reveal about forty rats that skittered away from inside the box, some of them running straight at Snake and Ocelot, most of them running in other directions.

“Think they’d mind if I caught a couple of them for later?” Snake joked, his eye watching as the rats ran into specially placed holes in the walls where he was sure they were gathered up and replaced into the box.

“I never understood why you’d eat all that crap.” Ocelot replied, and Snake didn’t even need to look over at him to know he was curling his lip in disgust.

“Remember, you ate all that crap too.” Ocelot’s shocked blue eyes snapped over to Snake’s remaining eye, causing Snake to laugh. “Didn’t think I’d figure out you ate all my animals from my backpack? You know…you could have just asked.” In the dim light, Snake couldn’t tell if Ocelot was blushing or not, but he knew the man well enough to know that he was. Ocelot didn’t award that with a response, just moving ahead, not caring if Snake followed him or not.

Moving into the next area, the duo glanced around the sparsely decorated room curiously. Snake’s eye was first drawn to the candles that were the only light in the room, then snapped up to the coffin placed on the right side of the suddenly too small room. He knew what coffins often entailed…and he wasn’t in the mood to deal with a vampire right then.

Scooting closer to Ocelot so that his shoulder was pressed against the other man’s shoulder, Snake never let his eye off of the coffin, anticipating that moment that it would swing open to try and scare them. He could take the vampire in a fist fight, that was for certain…he wasn’t…scared per se, just…not in the mood.

First a creak, then the lid to the coffin slammed against the wall, revealing what Snake had already known was going to be in there. The vampire was tall and slender, his cheekbones high and his cheeks sallow. Grinning at the two, revealing two un-humanly long teeth, the Vampire released a hearty laugh, sweeping his cape around his body as he jumped out of the coffin and ran straight at Snake and Ocelot, his eyes acutely focused on Snake.

Against his own will, his heart leaped in his chest, his eye widening in fear. Spinning around to run, he slammed into Ocelot, nearly knocking the other man over in the process. He had forgotten about his friend in the few moments that the Vampire had been sizing him up, and now that he had remembered his pal, he grabbed his arms, twisting them around so that Ocelot stood between himself and the Vampire.

“H…Hey!? Snake? What are you doing?” Ocelot asked as he glanced over his shoulder to look at the man nine years his elder hiding behind him from a man in a vampire costume.

Snake ventured a peek over Ocelot’s shoulder to see if the Vampire was still coming at them. The Vampire had seemed to pause when Snake started using Ocelot as his meat shield, but when he saw Snake was paying attention to him again, he rushed towards them, his arms outstretched, cape billowing behind him.

He could run. Run and leave Ocelot to deal with the Vampire…but…

Snake looked at Ocelot, who was ignoring the fact that the Vampire was coming straight at him in order to fixate Snake with a bewildered look.

He couldn’t leave Ocelot behind. He liked the other man too much to let him die. They were brothers-in-arms now and that meant that they had to help one another out and not let the other one die. Gripping Ocelot’s arm almost painfully, Snake spun around again, running towards the door opposite the one they had entered through. Ignoring Ocelot’s angered words, Snake could only hear his heart pounding in his ears as he dragged Ocelot through the other door…out of the Vampire room and away from the Vampire. Only then did he slow down…but only slightly. There was still a possibility that the Vampire would still come after them.

“Snake! Will you let me go!?” Ocelot about yelled at him, yanking on his arm to try to get him to release his grip. Letting his grip loosen slightly, Snake glanced at the blond to apologize. “What was that about?” Switching from irritation to amusement, Ocelot’s eyes sparkled in the candlelight.

Grumbling inaudibly, not even sure what he was trying to say, Snake pulled on his arm again, not wanting to stick around the other room for another moment. The further they were from the Vampire, the better…he…just hoped that Ocelot wouldn’t make fun of him for his slight fear…

This room was filled with spider webs and bookcases making a maze out of the room that they had to work their way through. Snake only succeeded in making them run into four dead ends until Ocelot got irritated.

“Do you even have a strategy…or are you just walking around blindly?” Frowning at him, Ocelot didn’t seem very happy or amused about the situation they were in. Snake sighed and shrugged his shoulders.

“Not really…” Ocelot sighed this time, rolling his eyes and placing his hands on his hips.

“Then let me lead. I’ll find the way out.” Snake turned around and started to lead them out of the dead end at least, though he agreed that perhaps Ocelot could find the way out quicker…he was still afraid that the Vampire was following them. He hadn’t heard any footsteps following them, and he was sure that he would have heard if the Vampire had indeed followed him…so perhaps he was being a bit silly thinking that the Vampire was out to get him…

…though…one shouldn’t underestimate their enemies…this was something Snake was well aware of.

Turning the corner around one of the bookcases and leading them back to a junction so that Ocelot could get his bearings about their location, Snake came face to face with none other than the Vampire.

 

 

 

 

 

 

^^^^^^^^

 

 

Stepping out into the cold autumn evening, the duo breathed deeply, enjoying the fresh air compared to the stuffy stale air in the haunted house.

Ocelot turned his grin to the man who was currently latched onto his arm, apparently not willing to part from the man who had gotten the Vampire to leave them alone.

“I’m disappointed that I promised that I wouldn’t tell anyone if you screamed…though, I suppose I could break that promise.” The younger man chuckled, very amused about what had just happened. He earned a one-eyed glare, the elder man very unamused with what occurred.

“It’s not funny.” If Snake’s intention was to get Ocelot to stop talking about it and to stop laughing in general, then he failed tremendously as Ocelot only started laughing more. Frowning deeply at the blond, Snake could only grumble at him unhappily.

“Hey guys.” A voice broke out over the other people’s murmurs, making them look over to the voice’s owner. Eva and Para-Medic made their way through the crowd towards them, both of them smiling widely. Both of them held a stuffed animal, apparently won from one of the game booths around the fair. “Enjoying yourselves?” Para-Medic asked, her eyes wandering from Snake to Ocelot.

“Oh yeah, we’re having a screaming good time.” Snake could swear that Ocelot barely contained himself with that comment, and Snake elbowed him in the ribs. If Para-Medic or Eva thought his choice of wording sounded strange, they didn’t question it, instead continuing on like nothing happened.

“That’s good.” Para-Medic paused, her hand ruffling her stuffed bear’s fur, “I love the fair. I haven’t been to one in years.” She looked at them excitedly and it almost made Snake feel better. Almost.

“Hey, did either of you hear the scream that came out of this place a few minutes ago?” Eva asked, cocking her thumb towards the haunted house amusedly.

This sent Ocelot into a fit of laughter, confusing the two women.

“Yeah…perhaps…perhaps…” Between his laughter and trying to get air back into his lungs, Ocelot started to respond…and Snake was more than ready to shut him up if he felt like it was starting to head into dangerous waters. Dangerous waters being him telling them that it was, in fact, Snake that had released the blood curdling scream when the goddamn vampire jumped out at him from behind the bookcase. “Perhaps it was just a Snake.” The Russian had the most amused look on his face that he had ever seen on the man…but that didn’t stop him from punching the other man hard enough on the arm to get him to release an almost pained yelp.

Para-Medic and Eva just stared at them in utmost confusion, not understanding what was passing between the two men…then both decided that it was probably just boys being boys.

“Okay, okay…” Raising his gloved hands in mock surrender, Ocelot smiled at Snake disarmingly. “That’s enough, I promise.” Snake didn’t believe him, he huffed grumpily, crossing his arms across his chest.

“What if I buy you something to eat?” At the mention of food, Snake looked over to him, his own grin breaking out across his face.

“You mean it?” Nearly forgetting that he was mad at Ocelot, Snake forgave him as his stomach growled loudly.

With a chuckle, Ocelot nodded. “Anything you want.”

Waving to Para-Medic and Eva, they headed off towards the food stalls, Snake more than eager to see what they had for selection.

He eventually settled for a burger and fries…classic fair food.

Sitting down across from Ocelot at a picnic table, Snake started digging into his burger eagerly, his mouth watering at its flavor. He probably could have set a record with how fast he finished his food, and it was only after he was done that he noticed that Ocelot was staring at him.

“Do I have something on my face?” Glancing around the table for a napkin, he quickly gave up when he saw that there weren’t any.

“No.” He looked Ocelot in the eye at that, unsure as to why he would be staring at him then.

“Oh…then why were you staring at me?” Snake blinked at him curiously, narrowing his eyebrow slightly at the other man’s almost sad chuckle.

“No reason…” Ocelot looked away from him, his gaze wandering around the other people seated around them at different tables. Snake wasn’t sure why Ocelot’s demeanor had changed…but then again, he had always seemed to act strangely around him.

Standing up and throwing his food tray into the trash, Snake turned around, expecting Ocelot to be right by his side like he always seemed to be…but was surprised to not see him. Glancing around, he found him still seated at their table, seemingly watching another couple. The couple looked to be in their teenage years, and madly in love. The boy had a cone of cotton candy and was pulling pieces of it from it and popping it into his girlfriend’s mouth, kissing her gently afterwards, earning a giggle from the girl. Then the girl copied her boyfriend, popping some of the cotton candy into his mouth and rewarding him with a kiss.

Ocelot seemed entrenched in what they were doing…and Snake could see the sadness in his gaze. Watching the other man for a moment longer, Snake turned and walked further away from the table, leaving Ocelot on his own.

He startled Ocelot when he sat back down at the table, this time seated next to him. Waving a stick with cotton candy in the air, Snake grinned at him, earning an incredulous look from Ocelot.

“You just ate…and yet you are still hungry?” Huffing at him, Ocelot turned his attention to Snake, the sorrow having dissipated away.

Instead of responding to the question, Snake pulled a chunk of cotton candy from stick and popped it into his own mouth, enjoying the way that it melted on his tongue. Pulling another piece from the stick, he held it out to Ocelot, who blinked at him. He reached his hand up to grab it from Snake, but he moved his hand away from his reach, shaking his head at him with a playful grin. When Ocelot let his hand drop, Snake held it out to the blond again, whose face turned a bright pink before he opened his mouth and let Snake put the sugary treat on his tongue. Waiting for a moment, Snake stretched his neck forward to plant a small kiss on the other man’s lips. Sitting back to look at Ocelot, Snake thought that the way the younger man blushed was adorable. He held the stick out to Ocelot, who grabbed a piece from it, reaching it out towards Snake who gratefully ate the candy then moved forwards to kiss Ocelot again, before the other man could even move.

They continued like that until the cotton candy was all gone.

“Doesn’t really fill you up.” Snake commented, standing up to throw out the now empty stick, this time though, when he turned around, Ocelot was right by his side, a smile on his face.

“No, it doesn’t…but it tastes good.” Leaning into Snake’s side as the older man wrapped his arm around his waist, Ocelot sighed happily, never having thought that today would have ended like it was.

“Yeah it does…I think you taste better though.” Kissing the blond on his forehead, Snake chuckled at his almost embarrassed expression, his eyes darting around to look at the other people around them, obviously afraid that someone was watching them. Snake didn’t really care though, no one had paid them any attention all day and he didn’t care if they were bothered about him and Ocelot…they had no impact on their lives so there was no reason to care if they didn’t like their relationship.

Ocelot didn’t know how to respond to that, only wrapped his arm around Snake’s waist and held him as close as he could, each of them relishing the other’s body heat in the cold autumn air.

With a grin, Snake led Ocelot around the fairgrounds, neither of them really looking at the fair attractions, but instead enjoying the closeness they had, one that neither of them had had in a long time.

Ever since he had to kill The Boss, nothing had seemed to be right in his world. The stars were dimmer, the birds silent…happiness was harder to come by.

But for the first time since he left that field of lilies, everything seemed right. Holding Adamska closer, John sighed happily, a grin breaking out across his face as the other man looked over at him, his bright blue eyes, so much like his mother’s, stared back at him, his own joy apparent on his face.

After another kiss, John strode forwards, Adam by his side, knowing that, even though the temperature was dropping day by day, this heat between the two of them wouldn’t be lost.

_Though the vampire from earlier had scared him more than he was comfortable admitting…_

Glancing over at Adam, John smiled softly, his heart warm.

_…his greatest fear was losing the man next to him._

He vowed then that he would protect him with his life if it came to that.

 

Leaves of yellow and orange drifted through the fairgrounds, children’s screams of joy filled the night air as did the aroma of food. Parents gathered their young ones, bundling them up to keep them warm, but two people, pressed against one another and the blossoms of a young love starting to bloom, even in the season that most things withered and died off, went unnoticed as they walked past.

 


End file.
